Sat in a title office lobby long enough to watch one house sell twice
I had an appointment at a title office to ask what a closing actually costs on a first deal, because every number I'd been given online was a range wide enough to drive a truck through. They told me to come at ten and the closer was running late.
So I sat in the lobby with a coffee. At about ten fifteen a family came out of the conference room, older couple and a daughter, all a bit teary, carrying a folder. Nice moment, clearly a house they'd had a long time. Twenty minutes later a guy in a polo comes back out of the same room, goes to his truck, comes back in with a second folder. Then at about eleven a younger couple goes in, and the guy in the polo goes in with them.
When I finally got my meeting I asked the closer, kind of joking, if the conference room was on a rotation. She said the file I'd been watching was two closings on one property. The couple sold to the man in the polo. Then the man in the polo sold to the younger couple. Same morning, same room, two separate files, two sets of paperwork.
I asked how he paid for the first one if he was getting paid in the second one and she said usually with short term money that gets repaid out of the second closing, and sometimes the second buyer's funds cover both at once so he brings nothing. Then she wrote out my closing cost estimate and I forgot my own question for a minute.
Still thinking about the fact that the older couple and the younger couple never met and never saw each other's number.